Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

First, I still stand up for the right of people to make objections and even judicial challenges. It is a cornerstone of environmental good practice that people have the ability to use the law to question process or policy objectives or individual projects. Although these cases may cause hindrance and discomfort to many people, in many instances the objectors are often proven right. I do not think a curtailment of the right to challenge is the key approach here. Part of the problem is that, as I stated, the legal structures are so complicated that it is very hard to know in many instances what is the right process or project and that, in itself, is leading to many challenges. The Attorney General and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage recognise that. The Attorney General came to the Government and committed to providing that kind of review, update, modernisation and consolidation, more than anything else, of what is a very complex area. The Attorney General is a person who, when he sets himself a goal, you can have faith he will deliver on it in that timeframe. This is part of the acceleration of projects we need to do. I meet him regularly to get an update and an assessment and to feed in my own thoughts on what we need to do. I recently had a meeting with the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Niall Cussen, the Planning Regulator, and both said they think it provides the opportunity for us to deliver the national planning framework objectives, as does NIFTI, to try to provide support as we update and modernise the law to provide for or support more compact development. They have a good stakeholders process through which organisations like that can give their input. I am confident it will be delivered in time and will be transformative.

As regards town centres, I will take Tipperary town as an example. One could take the example of Castlemartyr or another village. I could not have been more clear publicly and privately with TII and others that I think this is the priority. Mr. Ebrill may be tired of hearing me constantly saying to do the relief roads, bypasses and town centre first projects first and give them the greatest priority. We are at a critical moment, particularly as rural Ireland could benefit significantly, coming out of Covid, from people remote working and not necessarily having to live in a city. In fact, it is happening. We can see it happening. House prices are going up outside the main cities in a way that has not happened previously. The house price is higher there, which is indicative of a pattern of people deciding they will not have to live so close to their work. That is happening. It is critical that we get this moment of transformation right. To my mind, it is critical that we get as many people as possible living in the centre of towns because that is fulfilling the NIFTI principles in a sense. It is using existing assets. We do not have to build new assets everywhere. It means people living within walking distance of schools, churches, pubs, community centres and football pitches so that we can move away from a car-based system and we, as a state, do not have to provide ever-outwards development, which would be extremely expensive. In addition, you get the benefit of a very strong sense of community life.

We are not going to get all retail back, to be honest. I refer to this process of development outside towns in the context of retail. There was a case in the High Court before Christmas regarding an out-of-town retail unit that still got approval. That makes me scratch my head wondering how it is in tune with the latest planning thinking. The decision surprised me. We will have a review and update of the Housing for All strategy later this afternoon with the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

What I am also hearing in the context of town retail that is not being utilised - it could be an old pub or a shop - is that we are going to look at innovation around whether planning permission or whatever is needed for it to be reintroduced as a domestic dwelling. My view is that we need to look at bank lending rules around that and some of the access, egress and insurance rules in respect of fire safety and so on. We do not want to take any chances but we have to consider the obstacles to living above the shop and the conversion of some of those properties to residential use, particularly at a time when house prices are rising and there is a housing crisis. We need to amend a variety of those regulations to bring people back into the centre. One of the advantages of that is that when it starts to happen, local retailers start to gain and benefit. It can be done at scale - Tipperary town is big enough to do it at scale there - in terms of putting a large population in.

As for the nature of that road, I do not know the alignments and I would be keen to see them. In any event, it does not need to be a motorway. In fact, it cannot be a motorway because there are so many other towns and villages we need to bypass. We cannot do this at a scale of four-lane highways everywhere. It will also be better for the town if it is not an impassable barrier. At the same time, we should use this as an opportunity to take out the through traffic, particularly freight traffic in the likes of Tipperary town, which is on a major freight route from Limerick to Waterford. I think we should be bold. My advice, which I will be making clear, is we should use this opportunity to stop the through traffic, make the town accessible and create a civic space in the centre. Some towns have done that and shown it works. If we do not do that, traffic will always flow through and we may miss that opportunity. Let us make Tipperary town centre a spectacularly attractive place to walk through and to have a child. A colleague of mine says a town centre should be a place where you can let go of the hand of a five-year-old and not be terrified that he or she will get injured. That is what we need to do.

The Deputy might remind me of his final question.